BNP Paribas has agreed to sell its 67% shareholding in Banque Marocaine pour le Commerce et l'Industrie to Holmarcom Finance Company, the financial arm of Moroccan conglomerate Holmarcom, in a transaction announced on 29 April 2026. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals in Morocco and France and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. Once cleared, control of one of Morocco's oldest banks will pass from the French banking group to a domestic industrial group with a rapidly expanding presence in financial services across the kingdom.
FRENCH GROUP EXITS A LEGACY FRANCHISE
The sale marks another step in BNP Paribas' long-running review of its non-core international footprint. The French group has been narrowing its geographic focus in recent years, redeploying capital to its European retail networks, corporate and institutional banking, and asset gathering franchises. BMCI, in which BNP Paribas has held a majority stake for decades, has increasingly sat outside that strategic core.
For BNP Paribas, the disposal removes a subsidiary that had struggled to achieve the scale needed to compete with Morocco's dominant local players. Executives have previously said that the group's African footprint needs to be selective, with capital directed to markets where it can achieve a leadership position or where it can support corporate clients on cross-border transactions. In Morocco, BMCI operated as a mid-sized universal bank in a market where the top three institutions have long enjoyed a decisive advantage in scale, branch coverage and access to public sector business.
Exiting the position also aligns with a wider pattern of European banks stepping back from majority stakes in African subsidiaries, either by selling to local acquirers or by reducing to minority holdings. The financial terms of the BMCI transaction were not disclosed, meaning the immediate impact on BNP Paribas' capital and earnings will only become clear in future results, but the strategic message is unambiguous.
HOLMARCOM BUILDS A MOROCCAN CHAMPION
For Holmarcom, the acquisition is a significant leap in scale. The privately held group already owns Crédit du Maroc, another mid-tier Moroccan bank, and adding BMCI would give it a combined franchise capable of challenging the country's two largest lenders. The group has previously indicated that it intends to consolidate its banking assets into a single platform over time, and the proposed merger of BMCI with Crédit du Maroc has been widely flagged as the logical end point of that strategy.
Holmarcom Finance Company has been expanding across banking, insurance and asset management as part of a broader diversification of the family-owned conglomerate, which has historic roots in food processing, distribution and real estate. The push into full-service banking gives the group a platform to cross-sell financial products to a large existing customer base across its industrial businesses.
The transaction will require clearance from Bank Al-Maghrib, the Moroccan central bank, as well as from competition and market authorities. Any transfer of control at a systemically important Moroccan lender must be assessed against the country's banking law, which imposes tests of financial soundness and fitness on new controlling shareholders. Both parties said the deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026 once those approvals are secured.